Talk:Timeline
After watching the episode "Yesteryear", I have fixed numerous timeline errors, the most notable being Spock's birthyear. According to the original timeline, Spock is born in 2230. Yet, when I ran through the episode, it is stated by Spock that he wishes to time travel via the Guardian of Forever to a Vulcan of 30 years ago. If the year of this episode is 2269 as stated on the episode page, then this means Spock traveled to the year 2239. Again, according to Spock, he is saved by his cousin 'Selek' when seven years of age. Thus, if the events depicted in "Yesteryear" occured in 2239, Spock had to have been born in 2232, not 2230. Ergo, I changed any references to these events to the correct year. (I didn't want to explain over and over why I made the change. I thought a single location would be ideal.)--Airtram3 13:12, 20 February 2007 (UTC) :There's still a problem with that - not one you're responsible for, though. :) It's the huge assumption that this episode really took place in 2269. Can we be sure about that? -- Cid Highwind 13:39, 20 February 2007 (UTC) ::I think the source for the original date of 2230 is the Star Trek Chronology where it is stated that according to a deleted scene from "Journey to Babel", Sarek and Amanda Grayson married 38 years prior to the episode (2267), meaning they were married in 2229 and then, another assumption, Spock was born about a year later, hence 2230. --Jörg 14:11, 20 February 2007 (UTC) :::I agree with Cid -- the episode date is by no means "fixed in stone" -- while the birth year is at least derived from a deleted script scene. It might make more sense to change the date of "Yesteryear" than it would to change the more well-established birth date. -- Captain M.K.B. 14:22, 20 February 2007 (UTC) :I think the date of this episode is based on the assumption that TAS Season 1 is year 4 of the five-year mission running from 2265-2270 (which are up to 6 years, btw, leaving some wiggle room in itself), right? The exact assignment of episodes to years here escapes me at the moment... -- Cid Highwind 14:31, 20 February 2007 (UTC) :::: Cid, you realize, of course, that the date of ALL TOS episodes are based on an assumption. When looking at the whole picture, this kind of ties to the discussion over at "Forum:Date of Voyager's Return," where we get one or two calendar date references made in a whole series and they are responsible for dictating or resetting the rest of the otherwise (almost) established time-line. So, here are a few points that need to be consider for this scenario as a whole: ::::* The calendar dates for TOS were based initially, and almost entirely, on the idea that year that the episode aired in + 400 = 226x, as established by the Star Trek Chronology. This method completely disregarded the season that an episode aired, unlike the system that was later established in TNG (where 1 season = 1 year), and where TOS Season 1 might have been something like 1/1/2266 to 12/31/2266, rather than random date 2265 through random date 2267. In fact, the Chronology seems to have "made up" most all of the dates in the Star Trek universe, especially for TOS. Meanwhile, this site, from day 1, has apparently recognizes these dates, which are based on conjecture, yet ironically deems the source itself as non-canon, according to its own policies, meaning our entire time line is based on conjecture. The exceptions, of course, being ENT, where the year was explicitly given, and the 3 or so post-TOS series episodes that establish an actual calendar year: , ; with several establishing calendar days (but not actual years): , , , and "Homestead"-- with the latter being the only episode to actually have the time-line adjusted according to compensate-- perhaps. ::::* While none of that is truly applicable to TAS, establishing a time-line for the series does. So, to say the least, the date assumptions in TOS, that we are partially responsible for and the ST:Chronology is responsible for, only make the task of pegging the dates of TAS down that much more difficult to tackle. These difficulties begin at , which apparently takes place almost a full year before the rest of the beginning one-third of TOS Season 1. Why this is, escapes me. If the plot line goes: "these are the voyages of the starship Enterprise. Its five-year mission--," and the mission began in, say 2265, why does our time line drop off, then pick up again midway through the second year of the mission, 2266, with the season ending midway through the third year? If "Where No Man Has Gone Before" presumably picks up at the beginning of Kirk's "five-year mission," why can't the rest of TOS Season 1 follow, rather than arbitrarily skipping ahead a year to follow the "+400 formula" established by the ST: Chronology? The least we could do is explain why we did this on M/A, because if this is wrong, then this obviously trickles down, causing us to wonder if , another episode referenced here, really happened the year that we have it has cited as. ::::* In the entire TOS series, only "Charlie X" manages to establish a calendar date reference where, "On Earth today, it's Thanksgiving" -- allowing us to assume that at that point it was late November on the Enterprise, just because it was '''on Earth'-- the same can almost be said about the "Homestead" reference too. But the question still remains: is it supposed to be Thanksgiving, 2265 or 2266? This, of course, all goes back to why "WNMHGB" mysteriously takes place a year before the rest of the episodes from that season. ::::* So back to the topic at hand, and what all this boils down to: why does the majority of TAS Season 1 episodes fall within the year 2269? The ''only, daresay, plausible reference I can find that can place any TAS episode in the TOS time-line, was made in the very episode that started this discussion: . It is here that it is established by McCOY that "He's been your first officer for five years", placing this episode within earshot of the final full year of Kirk's "five-year mission." But then again, this is where all my previous points become necessary to think about: What year it is, which then again depends on when exactly the mission began (2265 was never fully established, but then again, when in 2270 the mission ended (c.f. ) wasn't either), and then of course, was this reference made to represent exactly 5-years (versus "almost", versus "the duration of this five-year mission, thus far"). :::: So while Cid is right in as far as it being an assumption that "Yesteryear" really took place in 2269, it is really no more of an assumption than the rest of the TOS time-line. So in the end, this much is clear: "Yesteryear" wiggles in near the end of the "five year mission," which does seem to fit into the year 2269-- at least the latter half of it; if not the very beginning of 2270. But the real question is, when does TOS really take place? --Alan del Beccio 21:04, 20 February 2007 (UTC)